After 90 minutes of forceful speeches, punctuated by occasional chants from dozens of children in football uniforms, city officials got the message: Neighborhood residents vehemently oppose a plan to replace a popular playground on New York Avenue NW with 98 townhouses.
"I think everyone here decided it was not a good plan," Kimberley Flowers, acting director of the D.C. Parks and Recreation Department, said after last night's community meeting. And she offered opponents some hope:
"It is not a done deal."
The proposal is part of an ambitious city plan, still in its early stages, to revitalize a neighborhood near New York Avenue and North Capitol Street that includes the high-crime Sursum Corda housing cooperative.
The new townhouses would provide housing for some of the 520 poor families who might be displaced when Sursum Corda is redeveloped.
Of the 98 proposed townhouses, one-third would be designated for the poor, another third for the middle class, and another third would sell at market value.
Neighborhood resident Sylvia Matthews said the park, which occupies much of a city block at New York Avenue and First Street NW, is an integral part of the area. "Why are we being punished?" she asked city officials. "What do you want our kids to do?
"If you use one square of the park, it's too much," she added.
An empathetic Flowers conceded that it was a "shame we did not engage you in the process of making this plan" and said that more input would be welcome.
The plan came out of four days of meetings last month between city officials and residents of Sursum Corda and the surrounding area. But residents who attended last night's meeting said they were not included in the talks.
Besides offering recreation space, resident Jonathan Howard said, the park has historical value, explaining that it was once known as "a white and colored playground . . . where the whites and the blacks came together and began to play."
"I played there," he said. " My son is playing on this playground. And I hope one day his son plays on it. You're taking away history."
